


when you're up, I'm down

by Nakimochiku



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Established Relationship, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-09-28 14:35:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10117832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nakimochiku/pseuds/Nakimochiku
Summary: Aaron was never special, but when his friend Theo gets sick, he turns to crime to help her through it. The only thing in his way is a masked vigilante he keeps running into.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I was cleaning up my google docs and found this mostly completed so here it is. I have had this sitting in there since the summer? just? complete? so weird.

It seems funny to him that in all the superhero origin stories, they start out orphans. It's like the first on the list of superhero requirements. 

Check, Aaron thinks humorlessly.

And then something happens, a science experiment gone wrong, a horrific accident, radioactive waste or a meteor, and in the origin stories, the superhero suddenly finds themselves with the ability to make a difference. Well. There's an accident.

(Screeching metal, his sister’s voice, he might be screaming but--)

Check. 

But no powers.

Aaron isn't particularly special. He had a bit of money in a trust, long lost now to a thousand debts. He went to university a little early. He never took martial arts as a kid.

Sometimes Aaron feels as though he’s gripping two ends of the fabric of the universe and trying desperately to hold them together. He pulls with all his might, but like plastic, it gives beneath his nails, or wrenches his shoulders, threatening to tear him apart. He tries desperately to make sense of it, control it, stitch it all together into some semblance of order.

Sometimes it’s fine and he’s happy. He goes to work from nine to five. He spends too much on organic mangoes for Alex to eat and tease him about. He makes breakfast, and sometimes he manages not to burn the eggs. He kisses Alex when he comes home from the bar, and they fuck when everyone else is polite enough to pretend they’re asleep, breathing desperately into each other’s mouths as though they long to eat each other alive. Maybe there are no answers but the universe fits in his palms and lets him draw each end close and everything is perfect.

And then Theo gets sick.

Aaron’s always been a little quicker than other people. Just a little stronger, just a little smarter. It never mattered until he saw Theo on that hospital bed, wheezing like she was breathing her last, his bank account empty so he can’t even buy her pain killers, Alex going over their records and accounts again and again trying to help.

So Aaron does the one thing he knows he can get away with, a bad habit he developed when he was a teenager looking for a taste of rebellion and something like control.

"Stealing is bad you know," a snide voice rings out. Aaron pulls up short in his quick scamper around the fire escape to look behind him. His stalker is wearing a black mask with gleaming white eye holes, arms crossed over his chest, covering the silver insignia.

Aaron snorts, and tightens his grip on the bag. "Depends on where you're standing."  He’s about to leave, ducking over the rusted out fire escape and hooking wires in to make a smooth jump. He's not about to have a philosophical debate on the fine points of law and morality with some loser playing at superman. Theo is waiting for him; weak and in pain and dying.

"From the vantage point of someone who needs that medical equipment, but is now being deprived because of your crime, it's bad."

"Is this the face of someone who cares?"

"I can't tell actually. You're wearing a mask too."

Aaron snorts again, and finds that the superman wannabe followed him down into the dank alleyway with ease. The thought that he might actually have some skill, despite his stupid costume, is unnerving, setting his teeth on edge. "If they can afford a hospital in the first place, they aren't that bad off." Not like Theo.

That draws the masked hero up short, and he pauses to look into Aaron's face, as though he can see through the mask, tipping his head to the side. "Are you..." He starts hesitantly, and Aaron briefly considers just decking him and making a run for it. He really wishes he’d brought along Peggy's army knives. "Are you doing this for someone you know?"

Aaron stiffens. "So what if I am?" The masked hero takes a step away and Aaron follows suit, backing away as well.

"If I catch you stealing again, I won't be so lenient. It's not right to take things that aren't yours. But I won't punish crimes of necessity."

Aaron takes off at a dead run before the masked loser can finish. He spits on his moral high ground. This is the only thing he knows he can do.

*

Theo has the good sense not to ask where the meds came from, so Aaron doesn't tell, though the fact he had her print out a map of the pharmacy should be a dead giveaway. They eat a sparse family breakfast around the formica table, Peggy and Maria squabbling like hyenas at one end over the last toaster strudel, and Theo diligently drinking a glass of water at the other end. There's an open seat beside Aaron that Alex slips into, planting a kiss on Aaron’s cheek.

“Morning everyone.” he beams. He looks around the table, and his eyes land on the bottle of pills, but he doesn't say anything at all, just starts about a new essay he’s been thinking of writing. “So essentially, I’d be writing on changes in the current economic state where it pertains to taxes. If it gains traction it could be quite influential.”

“I will never understand how you’re so passionate about numbers.” Aaron sighs in fond exasperation. Alex sticks out his tongue at him.

Peggy coughs softly, settling at the table with a bowl of cereal, while Maria munches on her prize. “Angelica wanted me to tell you she might not have enough for tuition.” she says, biting her lip when the kitchen falls silent at her announcement. “The shop hasn’t been seeing much traffic, and Eliza’s car broke down for good this time, so--” she swallows.

“We’ll think of something.” Alex answers, reaching for the account book that now resides permanently on the kitchen table.

“We always do.” Aaron adds, even though he already has.

*

Theo’s coughing echoes around the apartment. Aaron grits his teeth and stuffs his mask into his duffel bag, rifling in the closet for his sneakers. A broom jostles loose and falls against a shoe rack, rattling the whole thing. Alex grumbles and stirs. “Shh, go back to sleep.” Aaron murmurs into the shadows.

“Where are you going?” Alex’s voice is rough and sleep heavy. He has work in a couple hours. “Come back to bed, nap with me.”

“I just feel a little restless. I’ll be right back.” Aaron pets his hair once. “Go back to sleep.” Alex whines,  but Aaron slips out the bedroom door, and checks that Peggy’s knives are lethally sharp, strapped to his wrists, as he gets out of the apartment and melts into the night.

*

It's just enough money to pay Peggy's tuition, Aaron reasons, hugging the duffel bag to his chest and rounding the corner, and maybe put a dent in their credit card debt. The bank will hardly miss it. His feet pound the pavement in a steady beat, his breath is a hurricane in his chest, but he keeps running.

Sirens wail behind him, loud and discordant. He slips into an alleyway, hooks a cord to his belt and tosses it easily to the roof, grappling hook at the end pulling taut. A police car speeds by, and Aaron curses, zipping up the line.

“Neat trick.” the masked super hero says, hands on his hips and head tipped to the side as though to make him more menacing. He looks like an eagle considering the distance of prey. Aaron shoulders his bag and doesn't reply, turning on his heel at a dead run, leaping gracefully across roofs like a gazelle, thinking only about home, about safety, about making it back for his family.

Weight lands on his back and knocks him to the damp roof tiles, crunching beneath him and scraping his cheek even through the fabric of the mask. Aaron shouts and struggles. “Get off me!” he hisses, bucking and kicking beneath the heavy press of the hero's scrawny thighs. He’s surprisingly strong despite his thin build.

“I told you I wouldn't let this go a second time. I warned you.” he sounds triumphant and regretful both, and he hauls Aaron up with laughable ease. “I can’t keep giving you a free pass every time you decide--” Aaron's jaw clenches, and one of Peggy's army knives slips from its holster at his wrist into his waiting fingers. As soon as the masked hero sets him up right he spins away, blade catching him in the belly.

He doesn't stop to see if he's injured him badly enough, if he's still following. His knees are jello and his hands are shaking but he keeps running, until he's safe and ensconced in a bus back home, mask tucked in the duffel bag with ten thousand dollars.

*

Alex comes in late, when Aaron is half asleep. He sheds his work clothes as he moves, he smells of cigarette smoke and weed and rum, and he falls into bed at the end of his strip tease with a weary groan. “Rent is due this week.” he reminds, arm curling around his waist.

Aaron gives a sleepy mumble. “Got it covered.” Alex leans in to kiss his forehead, and Aaron's fingers slide down his chest. he blinks awake when his fingertips meet a bandage. “What the hell is this?”

“No big deal. Got a rough customer at the club. It barely stings.”

Aaron glances up in abject horror, then sighs when Alex just smirks winsomely at him. “No big deal my ass.”

Alex reaches up, touches his fingers to the scrape on his cheek. Even in the shadows his eyes seem dark and considering. “What happened here?” just the brush of his thumb stings, but Aaron doesn’t flinch away.

“Fell.” He says lightly, then pitches his voice up to imitate Alex. “It’s no big deal.”

“I admit i deserve that.” Alex’s gaze is intense, searing, his fingers trailing to rest against his throat, right along his pulse as though to measure it. “Is there something you need to tell me?”

“Like what?” Aaron keeps his voice bland, leans in to breath Alex’s air, close enough to kiss.

“Like what indeed.”

*

Theo’s room is a mess of flower pots, breathing life in greenery all around her on every flat surface, so the place smells of potting soil and sunshine. “You said you would stop, Aaron.” Theo reminds, picking at a pot thick with ivy and inspecting it.

“I will.” Aaron answers, leaning back against the window, watching the sun rise over the skyline. He needs to be at work in an hour. Theo shoots him a suspicious look. “I will. When Peggy's done school, and I get my raise at work and Alex gets that job he's gunning for in the office and you get better. Then I’ll stop.”

“This can't last forever, Aaron.”

“It doesn't need to last forever. It needs to last six more months.” Aaron goes over to the warped mirror by Theo’s bed and adjusts his tie.

“And what about that guy? The one in the mask? He's been all over the news, catching criminals left and right.”

“I've already gotten away from him before. I can do it again.”

“You think he's just sitting around with his thumbs up his ass? He’ll come after you, Aaron, and when he does you might not get away so easily.”

Aaron shrugs and tries to smile at her comfortingly, considers asking her for a shape up when he gets home from work. Alex is asleep in the next room, later he’ll cook dinner and leave it on the stove before heading to the club in the evening. They barely see each other between work anymore. “Will you plan this job for me? Just one more to tide us over.”

Theo gives a long, exasperated sigh and hands Aaron a little folder. He tucks it into his satchel and waves over his shoulder.

Just one more job to tide them over.

*

“Fuck.” Aaron scampers up the fire escape and does not pause to assess whether or not he's being followed. A gunshot ringing out behind him answers  that question anyway. The next building over is slightly taller than the roof he clambers on. Aaron whirls his hook over his head to catch the lip of the roof and takes a running start to swing over, sneakers catching the ledge of a window sill.

“Stop!” the masked hero’s voice carries over the din of the sirens and gunshots and terrified screams of civilians in the street.

“Not really in a position to listen to you.” Aaron hollers back, running up the wall with the help of his cable and swinging over onto the roof. He wants to take off running, but his hook catches on the roof instead of coming free at his tug and there's a lithe arm hauling him back by the waist. Aaron swings around with his left hand, blade in his fist, but the masked hero has clearly learnt from their last fight, because he ducks beneath the arch of his arm and sends him sprawling across the roof with a shove so hard he rolls a couple times. Aaron wheezes and scrabbles up to stand, limited by his hook, like a rat in a trap. The masked hero charges at him, and Aaron glances back at the ledge, the next roof over and his hook.

He takes a breath and leaps over it, feeling the woosh of air over his head as the hero bounds past him. He swings over, foot out to catch the next sill of the window. An ominous shudder runs down the cable. Aaron glances up in time to watch the hook pry loose. Oh god. He lets out a short shriek, before something catches him around the legs. “What the--?” he hollers, looking down.

If the hero could, he'd probably have grinned at Aaron through his mask.

“You're flying. That is--” Aaron squirms in his hold, and looks over his shoulder at the ground floating several storeys away. “You’re flying, that’s--” he repeats, but the word impossible can’t leave his mouth because clearly it’s possible, it’s happening right before his eyes.

“Could you hold still? This isn’t actually half as easy as it looks with you wriggling like that.” the hero grouses, setting him gently on the firm roof once more. He holds him still and captive. “Now that you're no longer in mortal peril of your own making, give it back.”

“Give what back?” Aaron asks as innocently as he can. He doesn’t have Alex’s wide puppy eyes, known to bring even Peggy's hardened sister to her knees, but his valiant effort is somewhat lost in translation through his mask. The hero snorts.

“That sapphire you stole from the museum.” he holds out a hand and makes grabby motions. “Give it back, I won’t ask again.”

“I didn't steal a sapphire.” Aaron answers steadily. He holds his hands palms up in the universal sign of surrender as best he can in the hero's grasp.

“And I suppose you were just in the area doing... what?”

“Practicing my parkour.” Aaron smiles in smug satisfaction as the hero lets out a loud, irritated sound, pats him down, and shoves him away.

There is no sapphire.

“You’d think a guy as smart as you appear to be would have the good sense not to practice parkour in areas with riot gear police,” the hero drawls, letting Aaron go and taking a step back.

Aaron kisses his teeth, and the hero flies away.

*

Peggy dumps the sapphire into Aaron's laundry basket when she passes him by the next morning. Aaron frowns at her and whispers, “Next time, you be the decoy.”

*

“I’ve missed you.” Alex says against his ear, pressing kisses to his neck, slow and easy like the prayers of the faithful. His arms are slim and strong, hauling him across the sheets to hold him tight against his chest as though he might run, as though he’d even dream of it.

“I’ve been here.” Aaron says, and turns in his arms to study Alex’s face; big brown eyes ringed with sleepless nights, his beard that needs a trim, the freckles along his throat, the thin bow of his mouth. It’s a lie. They always seem to miss each other, crawling into bed in the middle of the night to find the other out cold. Alex has been out later and later.

“You haven’t.” Alex whispers. Aaron opens his mouth to retort, to say that he hasn’t been gone the way Alex has, but the words are kissed away. “But I don’t want to fight tonight.”

“Alexander Hamilton doesn’t want to argue?” Aaron presses, smile thin and cold. “It’s a nippy day in hell.”

“I’ll fight you tomorrow.” Alex buries his face in Aaron’s neck and breathes. “Just not tonight.” Aaron ducks his head, noses in Alex’s hair, breathes in the scent of cigarette smoke and tropical shampoo and alcohol, the scent so familiar now it soothes him to sleep. They will argue tomorrow, he knows, feels tension building like a storm between them, threatening thunder and lightening. They will argue loud and hard enough to shame a tropical storm. But that is tomorrow, and tonight, there is quiet. There is the thrum of Alex’s heart beneath his hands. There is the contrast of cool sheets and warm skin. Tonight, there is just this.

*

Theo takes a turn for the worst, coughing and shaking weak as a newborn kitten. She can't eat, and even though she seems to sleep all day, her eyes are hollow and her body weary.

Aaron wants to be at her side twenty four seven, but the money the sapphire got to tide them over is quickly getting tied up in Theo’s hospital bills and procedures and medications and therapies. He goes to work, stays over time, argues with Alex about taking some other job at another club as a bartender. Their arguments about money, where it’s going to come from, what they're going to use it for, go around in circles, until they both hiss at Peggy to shut up when she mentions dropping out of school.

Livid and stone cold, Alex shoves away from the formica kitchen table and slams out the door. Peggy says nothing at all, just slides her hand over his shoulder and steps away, wordless warmth and encouragement so fleeting. She tries not to sniffle. She has class in an hour.

Aaron ducks his head in his hands, and allows himself a moment of panic, frustration, fury. Questions for some higher power ring in his head, but as always he can find no rhyme or reason, and each end of the universe threatens to wrench him apart. Tears streak from his eyes, and he's never felt so desperate or directionless before.

A chair scrapes against the linoleum across from him, and Aaron hurriedly wipes his cheeks and looks up. Maria leans back in her chair, her eyes like the crackle and flare of coals. She slides a folder across the table and flicks it open to the first page, snapping her bubblegum.  “I'll cover three months of rent and foot Theo’s hospital bills if you take these guys out for me.”

Aaron gapes.

No one really knows what Maria does. She never seems to work, but her rent’s always on time and she buys most the groceries. She has a daughter somewhere, he knows, she shows them pictures of her on her phone with the gleaming pride only a mother can manage, but that’s as soft and human as she gets. They never bothered to ask, because Aaron always got the vague impression that the less he knew about her the better, but Alex likes to speculate when they have time to talk but nothing to talk about.

“Where the hell are you gonna get that kinda money?”

Maria smirks and crosses her arms. “You really wanna ask me that?”

Aaron gestures at the folder, “And who are they?”

“Small time gang infringing on my territory.” Aaron blinks, and decidedly doesn’t ask. “Rough ‘em up. Run em out. That's all I need from you.”

Aaron doesn't think about it. “Yeah, I can do that.”

*

“I got one more job.” Aaron murmurs, sliding gentle fingers up and down Theo’s skinny wrist.

“No.” Theo gasps out weakly, struggling to find his fingers to grip them hard. “You promised that was the last one.”

“I didn't promise anything. And this is safe. Maria gave me this job.” Aaron tries to smile encouragingly, but it mostly comes out like a strange stretch of muscles and baring teeth. “If I do this, Maria’ll take care of us. She’ll take care of you.”

“Maria’s dangerous.”

“I’m dangerous. And Maria's on our side.”

“Fuck, Aaron.” Theo sighs, before giving into a fit of coughing, nearly bending double as she wheezes and tries to catch her breath. Aaron rubs his back soothingly. “She’ll get you in trouble, despite her best intentions.”

“I'm already in, Theo, and I can’t see a way out. There's no getting out now.”

*

Aaron thought, at first, that hurting people would be hard, that something inside him wouldn't be able to handle it, that some moral compass would rebel against it. 

It's shockingly easy.

Flesh gives beneath Peggy’s knives like butter, and he leaves a string of groaning bodies tossed behind him like forgotten toys. He almost feels powerful, and it almost feels good.

He checks himself at that, thinks that way lays demons. But then someone else comes at him with a crowbar and he remembers Theo laying pallid and weak in a sterile hospital room and once more he finds it so easy to sink his knife in and twist.

There's commotion coming from the other end  of the hall. Aaron knows from the map Maria gave him of the gang's hideout that beyond a thick iron door, they've hidden their leaders. Something screeches, and the door slams open. Another gang member comes barreling at him, face a mask of abject terror.

“Oh god another one--” he nearly screams, before Aaron slams him hard into the wall, forearm pressed so hard to his windpipe he could probably crush the cartilage.

“Don't kill him!” a familiar voice shouts, a hand on his shoulder wrenching Aaron back. The gangster whimpers and promptly faints, and Aaron sighs in annoyance and turns to the masked hero. “I thought you were a criminal.” he gestures at the chaos Aaron left in his wake. “Shouldn’t you be helping these guys, not hurting them?”

“I am.” Aaron replies easily, shaking the hero's hand from his shoulder. “But don't lump us all together. I'm here for my own gain.”

“You've nearly screwed up this mission for me.” The hero pulls away, regarding him with his chin tipped up. Aaron struggles to keep his face straight behind his mask and fails miserably. “It's dangerous for you here.”

“I nearly screwed up? For you?” Aaron's voice pitches up with cold fury he can’t bite back. “I have a job to do, I have people depending on me. So get out of my way and let me finish this--”

A gunshot rings out across the hall way, and Aaron nearly bites his tongue off at the stab of pain, hot and invasive, through the meat of his shoulder. “Aaron!” someone shouts

He screams behind his clenched teeth and rounds on the gangster, barely holding his life in as blood seeps out around his fingers. Aaron's hand whips up to hurl a knife but the hero’s already there, one kick to the side of his head knocking the gangster unconscious.

Somethings strange. The hero stands straight, glancing among the bodies littered in the hall for anyone else still clinging to consciousness. It's unnaturally still and quiet where before it was chaos and noise. A prickle runs down Aaron’s spine, a cool spike of real fear settling like a knot in his belly.

There’s something familiar about the way the hero moves, the sound of his voice, muffled as it is, the way he screamed his name--

“Alexander Hamilton is that you?” Aaron demands, ripping off his mask, lunging straight at the other man’s chest. He slumps, and lets Aaron catch him, lets him pull off his mask. There are Alexander’s eyes, his long nose, his mouth. Rage flares and curls in his belly, a banked flame given new life as every encounter runs through his mind anew. “How long have you known it was me?”

“Do I look stupid to you all of a sudden?” Alex snaps. “I knew from the jump. You think you could just get Theo her meds, just pay the debt and Peggy’s school fees and whatever else and I wouldn’t fucking wonder where the money was coming from?”

If Alex expects the answer to calm him he’s sorely mistaken. Aaron’s lips peel back in a snarl so rough it almost surprises him. He grips Alex;s collar and shoves him back hard into the wall, and the bare bulb above them trembles with the force, their shadows jump and dance around them. “All this time you’ve tried to stop me, and you know why I’ve been doing this. You tried to get in my way--”

“Because what you’re doing is wrong, Aaron, and I can’t take exception--”

“I don’t give a fuck!” Aaron spits back. “I don’t give a fuck about right and wrong, I don’t have the luxury of worrying about something as flimsy as morality--”

A door crashes open at the end of the hall, gunshots ring out, peppering the wall beside them with smoking black holes. Aaron’s eyes narrow, and he silently promises, “This isn’t over,” before darting away, fist flying into the face of the first gangster to cross his path. He can feel Alex behind him, but his presence only fuels his rage, so he punches harder, moves faster, tastes destruction on his tongue.

He wants answers, and he swears he’ll get them.

*

Alex has always been strong. Lafayette is damn near twice his size, but Alex can put him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and walk with him, laughing the whole way. His friends used to laugh that his narrow hips and skinny arms were deceptive, that his heart and his voice were bigger than his name, and definitely bigger than his muscles. For a long time his strength was for opening jars that Aaron couldn’t, for moving bookshelves.

And then at some point he decided to become a superhero.

They watch the warehouse burn from across the bay

“When,” Aaron whispers, voice flat. Alex glances over to him but Aaron can’t bring himself to move or look in his eyes. “When?”

“That night you and Theo were mugged on your way home. And they stole your grocery money, and you were all bruised up because they hit you, and you were trying not to cry.” Alex rests his chin against his knees. “That’s what made me start. I still remember the way your face looked when you tried not to cry, or the way you joined Peggy’s self defense classes.” He snorts suddenly with laughter, and Aaron glances over at him because he has no idea what he finds so funny. He rubs at the back of his neck, brushing away thin baby hairs, smile sardonic. “I guess that’s why you’re so good at fighting.”

“But when?” Aaron presses.

Alex shrugs. “Maria came to me with some gangs causing trouble, months ago, long before you... She keeps me informed.”

“You’re a self righteous bastard, Alexander Hamilton.” Aaron sighs, anger long drained from him, energy all used up in the fight.

“Yeah,” Alex agrees. He leans in cautiously. Aaron lets him.  Hes tired. His shoulder hurts. Alex’s arm is warm, and the breeze smells of gasoline and smoke and harbour water. “Do you promise to stop?”

“I’ll stop.” Aaron says easily. “I’ll just make up my mind about when.”


End file.
